An article in the New York Times looks at the hallowing out of the Black middle class in Memphis and the reversal of decades worth of economic gains:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/business/economy/31memphis.html
From a purely structural standpoint, it has long looked like African-American employment disparities are both part of initial condition gap that has never closed as well as subject to more volatility than white unemployment [ie; macroeconomic shocks happen at the same point, however AA employment is affected quite a bit more and often takes longer to recover. This is consistent with the "last hired/first fired" hypothesis.
The Economic Policy Institute currently notes that as of December 2009, median white wealth dipped 34 percent, to $94,600; median black wealth dropped 77 percent, to $2,100.
Because wealth provides a safety net in times of economic hardship, what we are seeing -- even in the best case scenario of a recovery that is underway [which I think is highly unlikely], is a completely decimated Black middle class, as well as a complete drawdown of the limited amount of assets that were available.
If a higher percentage of black families are unemployed, staying unemployed for longer, and drawing on much smaller pools of wealth as a safety net, that means that Black wealth is going to continue disappearing much faster than white wealth. Add to that predatory lending practices, the greater likelihood of foreclosure in segregated communities, and the greater likelihood of losing all wealth when you are starting with a much smaller amount and you have a situation where even if black and white employment and incomes were brought magically to parity tomorrow, you would see wealth disparities continue to increase.
